- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Pan; 4 edition (9 Feb 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330369415
- ISBN-13: 978-0330369411
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 10.6 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 178,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Opening with the brutal murder of a woman in 1970 Boston, Teran's God Is A Bullet then jumps forward 25 years to another savage killing. Local cop Bob Hightower discovers his ex-wife and her new husband ritually massacred and his daughter abducted. Setting out to find her, Hightower's only clue is a card pinned to the dead man's chest--"the Judgement...the twentieth enigma of the Tarot"--and his only help an ex-junkie and ex-cult member, Case Hardin, who recognises the trademarks of the sinister Left-Handed Path and its leader Cyrus. Knowing from personal experience the likely fate of Hightower's daughter, she joins Hightower in a desperate search for the missing girl, and the slow uncovering of the connection between the two murders reveals a web of deceit and corruption that extends deep into the heart of small-town America.
Teran's book manages to combine a sure sense of the dynamics of the thriller genre with a convincing examination of the darker legacies of the sixties. Charles Manson and the Tate-LaBianca murders are obvious reference points for the Left-Handed Path and its conjunction of satanic obsession, drugs, and philosophies of amorality, and Cyrus is a frightening articulation of the dark, negative energies of that decade's fallout:
It was there, in that trailer...that [Cyrus] found the true architect of the modern world...Where he found the only son of man--and he wasn't some jerk-off named Jesus. He was the architect who allowed for the zero-sum game with all its depravities. Who found beauty in blood, a christening through ultimate chaos. Who understood it was better to reign in some perilous extreme than to serve a life sentence of propriety out of fear.A vertigo-inducing descent into the diseased underbelly of American culture, Boston Teran's first novel is a powerful, accomplished thriller. The author's evocation of a subculture of evil and depravity is disturbingly plausible in its exploration of cult activity, and of the mindsets of those for whom ethics and conventional morality are just a sham--and normal people just "sheep" to be slaughtered. --Burhan Tufail --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
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First Sentence
It is 7:23 on a Sunday morning when the Sheriff's Department in Clay, California, gets the call a woman has been murdered. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
It is 7:23 on a Sunday morning when the Sheriff's Department in Clay, California, gets the call a woman has been murdered. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Simply one of the best books I have read in ages! Fast paced,edgy and completely enthralling. Sex,drugs and violent cults take you for a walk on the darker side of life. Top the book off with a soundtrack of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie and you could have the makings of a great alternative movie.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Gabi is waiting alone for her father. As he drives by on the highway after his shift, he'll flash his lights twice at her. Her reply is to switch her bedroom light on and off. Separated, this is their way of saying goodnight.
But this night, when Bob Hightower flashes his lights, there is no reply. Sinking further down into himself, he carries on home. The following day, Gabi's mother and step-father are found slaughtered in their home by unknown killers who have taken Gabi with them.
Bob searches fruitlessly for his daughter until a desperate appeal brings Case Hardin to his door, hoping she can help. Case is an ex-junkie and ex-cult member living in a halfway house in Hollywood. Together, she and Bob set out on a lonely quest; he to regain his child, she to exorcise the demons of her past. They will be swallowed down into the gullet of evil as they come into contact with a vicious Satanic cult known as "The Left-Handed Path" and are sent on a rollercoaster of danger which won't bring redemption and can only end deeper in Hell.
There have been some stunning debut novels in the past few years (e.g. Mo Hayder's Birdman, Carol Goodman's "The Lake of Dead Languages"), all introducing writers who have since raised the tide-mark of the genre that little bit higher. God Is a Bullet surely has to be the best. The writing style is addictive, and shoots into the veins like a drug you cannot get enough of. Boston Teran has a beautifully dark way with words and his use of metaphor raises the device to an art form, often stopping the reader in their tracks to consider the sheer brilliance of the writing and the many meanings and images which the words conjure. The characters and their different plights are hauntingly real. Strangely, there is absolutely no glimmer of hope as there is in some crime novels, and because of that, the outcome of the book is in doubt right until the end. We cannot be certain that Bob Hightower will get his daughter back alive, nor can we know that Case will find the peace she knows she can't. This makes the book horribly compelling and immensely powerful.
The setting of Bullet is quite perfect. The searing heat of the feral Californian wastelands ideally matches the tone and style of the novel. It is barren and lonely, yet strangely attracting. It matches the brutality of the plot itself. The only person who could write a review to fully express the quality of this book is Teran himself. This guy has some serious talent.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
At first I thought this book would be a by-the-numbers murder with the standard occult satanic references and throwaway lines. How wrong I was.
The author has avoided the obvious pitfalls and instead brought us a tale of redemption. Not only that, but the main characters really develop through the course of the book. There isn't really that much gruesome detail, rather the depths that some will go to, is shocking.
If you enjoyed titles such as The Straw Men or works by Michael Connelly, then this is well worth picking up.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Helter Skelter
It's the story of two people's quests in the southern states of America, one to find his kidnapped daughter, the other to avenge her past and her inner demons. Read more
Published on 19 Dec 2006 by Air Raid Patrol
Brilliant!
THIS BOOK IS AN AMAZING READ, NOT FOR THE WEAK STOMACHED BUT FABULOUS GRAPHIC DETAIL, ENGAGEING AND THOUGHT PROVOKING.
Published on 26 July 2005 by "kimathy"
Dark. Just as I like them
Dark. Just as I like them. Even better, it's hard to assign a genre. If it doesn't have an obvious genre then it isn't similar to a bunch of other book. Read more
Published on 28 Feb 2005 by Papa Legba
Thrilling Debut
I bought this book because of the blurb and the title. Two days later I had finished it. I couldn't put this book down - it really is one of my best reads for a while. Read more
Published on 22 Aug 2003
Devilishly Good
Dark, sinuous and irrisistable - this is a debut to make your hair stand on end. Like a mephistophelian hybrid of a pissed off James Ellroy and Charlie Manson on a crazed riff, few... Read more
Published on 2 Oct 2002 by Mr. Warren M. Fisher
A chilling masterpiece - Not Quite
A bit of a dumb title I thought but reading the back of the book I decided to give it a try. The book starts well and at times give a quite scary look into the seedy underbelly of... Read more
Published on 29 May 2002 by "stevemayoh"
The summary on the back promises a cracking read. It lies!
A bloody massacre. A 14-year-old girl kidnapped by a satanic cult. An ex-cult member forced to confront her past in service to the greater good. Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2001
Don't believe the hype
This wannabe Willocks gets nowhere near. Bored senseless after the first 10 pages. This is a mish mash of contrived soundbytes, a shallow pop video masquerading as 'Seven' or... Read more
Published on 14 Jun 2001 by perry@pbhandal.freeserve.co.uk
Rollercoaster of a ride!
I though Teran sketched an image of modern hidden America. He hinted at what lies benneth the glitz and glamour. Read more
Published on 2 May 2001 by Brent Stevenson
Artificial Darkness
Boston Terran seems to have been selected for stardom by those who thrust 'hipness' upon us, occasionally against our will. Read more
Published on 6 April 2001
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